Word.ws English Dictionary

cross one's arms

cross one's arms verb: to link one's arms together across one's chest.

cross one's arms: to link one's arms together across one's chest
Image: HindRasheed, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons

Verb

cross one's arms (third-person singular simple present crosses one's arms, present participle crossing one's arms, simple past and past participle crossed one's arms)

  1. (intransitive) To link one's arms together across one's chest.
    • Crossing your arms during an argument will most likely be interpreted as a sign of anger or defensiveness.
    Synonyms:
    fold one's arms

Synonyms of cross one's arms

Forms of cross one's arms

third-person singular presentcrosses one's arms
present participlecrossing one's arms
past participlecrossed one's arms
pastcrossed one's arms

Questions about cross one's arms

What does cross one's arms mean?
Cross one's arms means to link one's arms together across one's chest.
What part of speech is cross one's arms?
Cross one's arms is a verb.
What is the past tense of cross one's arms?
The past tense of cross one's arms is crossed one's arms.

Words near cross one's arms in the dictionary

  1. cross of Anjou
  2. cross of gold
  3. cross of Lorraine
  4. cross of Malta
  5. cross off
  6. cross one's arms
  7. cross one's fingers
  8. cross one's heart
  9. cross one's legs
  10. cross oneself
  11. cross out

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: cross one's arms (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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